Vegan Date & Nut Loaf
Makes 1 loaf
Prep: 20 - 30 minutes. Bake: 60 - 65 minutes plus cooling time
Vegetarians, vegans and those on an egg and gluten free diet.
Not a recipe from my Indian heritage but a lovely gluten free, vegan loaf to serve, lightly toasted with soup or at breakfast
Date and Nut Loaf
Ingredients:
120g soft pitted Medjool dates
100g pecan nuts or walnuts
‘Wet Ingredients’
300ml almond milk
3 tablespoons of aquafaba (liquid from a can of chickpeas used as an egg substitute)
2 teaspoons of cider vinegar
½ teaspoon of sea salt
2 teaspoons of maple syrup
‘Dry Ingredients’
60g buckwheat flour
55g brown rice flour
30g teff flour
30g ground arrowroot or cornflour
55g ground flaxseed
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 teaspoon baking powder
vegetable oil for greasing (I use rapeseed oil)
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180 - 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6
keeping a few nuts aside, roast the remaining nuts in the oven for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove, cool and then chop roughly
Grease and line a 1lb/450g loaf tin with greaseproof or baking parchment.
Place all the ‘dry ingredients’ (sifted flours, ground flaxseed, raising agents, cinnamon and the roughly chopped nuts) in a large bowl. Mix the contents to blend.
Pour the almond milk in a jug and warm in a microwave for 90 seconds. Pour into a blender.
Roughly chop the dates (removing stones if pitted dates are not available) if they are not soft otherwise leave them whole. Add the dates and the cider vinegar. Blitz the blender for about 20 seconds.
To the blender, add the aquafaba, salt and 1 teaspoon of maple syrup. Blitz again for a further 20 seconds.
Add the blended liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients in the bowl and mix with a metal spoon or spatula gently (in a figure of 8) until all the ingredients combine and the mixture thickens (a couple of minutes).
Pour the mixture in the greased and lined loaf tin and allow it to rest for about 15 minutes. Coat the reserved nuts with the remaining maple syrup and place on top. Turn the oven back on at the temperature listed above to reheat during the resting period.
Bake the loaf for c. 60 minutes until browned and baked through (check by passing a skewer through the centre of the loaf and it will come out clean if baked).
Remove from the oven. As soon as the loaf tin is cool enough to handle remove the loaf from the tin and cool on a wire rack.
Slice and serve. (I lightly toast and serve this bread with soup or have a buttered slice with a cup of chai). If freezes well in an airtight container lined with parchment paper.